Global Food Initiative

The University of California Global Food Initiative addresses one of the critical issues of our time: how to sustainably and nutritiously feed a world population expected to reach eight billion by 2025.

The initiative aligns the university’s research, outreach and operations in a sustained effort to develop, demonstrate and export solutions — throughout California, the United States and the world — for food security, health and sustainability.

UC President Janet Napolitano, together with UC’s 10 chancellors, launched the UC Global Food Initiative in July 2014. Building on existing efforts and creating new collaborations among UC’s 10 campuses, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and UC’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the initiative draws on UC’s leadership in the fields of agriculture, medicine, nutrition, climate science, public policy, social science, biological science, humanities, arts and law, among others. Its focus is both external, such as how UC translates research into policy and helps communities eat more sustainably, and internal, such as how UC leverages its collective buying power and dining practices to create desirable policies and outcomes.

The initiative aims to:

Identify best practices and share widely within UC, California, the nation and the world;

Use the power of UC research and extension to help individuals and communities access safe, affordable and nutritious food while sustaining our natural resources; and

Deploy UC’s research to shape, impact and drive policy discussions around food issues at the local, state, national and international levels.

As part of the first phase, UC Global Food Initiative working groups are developing best practices, and the toolkits to implement them, that, once successfully deployed systemwide at UC, can be offered to schools and communities nationwide.